This invention relates generally to product carriers, and more specifically carriers for belts or similar items for use with automated dispensing machines.
Garment belts that are sold at retail stores come in various sizes, styles and colors. In the normal course of business, a belt manufacturer has the task of taking orders for the garment belts, manufacturing them, and then shipping the orders to the retailers. The garment belts are typically stored and shipped in sleeves, e.g., elongated cardboard boxes, in which the belts are laid out lengthwise. In order to select the belts that are to be placed in the sleeve for shipment to the customer, the belts of various sizes which the customer has ordered are typically selected and removed manually from bins at the manufacturing facility.
Automatic dispensing means have been used in the past in various applications involving the selection of particular products from a line based on coded information, e.g., a bar code, associated with the product to enable the dispensing machine to dispense selected items for packaging. A limitation of such automated dispensing machines is that their use is typically limited to dispense products which are all the same or a similar size. Since garment belts typically ordered by large merchandisers will be of various sizes, e.g., an order may consists of a number of size 29xe2x80x3, 30xe2x80x3, 32xe2x80x3, 34xe2x80x3, 36xe2x80x3, 38xe2x80x3, 40xe2x80x3 and 42xe2x80x3, such an order has typically been filled by the manufacturers manually selecting those belts and packing them up for shipment.
Thus, there presently exists a need for some means for holding respective garment belts of different sizes and styles therein and which can be used with automated dispensing machines.
One aspect of the invention comprises a carrier assembly in the form of the combination of a carrier container and a bag. The bag, e.g., a flexible transparent plastic bag, is arranged for holding a product, e.g., a garment belt, or other item therein. The garment belt has associated with it a machine readable code, e.g., a bar coded label, located on a hang tag on the belt. The bag with the garment belt in it is placed within the interior of the carrier container. The carrier assembly is arranged to be used by an automatic dispensing machine, e.g., an apparatus having a conveyor mechanism, a dispensing unit and a scanner, to enable the machine to select the carrier assembly from other similar carrier assemblies in accordance with certain criteria, e.g., a bar coded tag, and to dispense the carrier assembly therefrom if the carrier assembly is to be selected, e.g., signals received from the scanner""s reading of the bar code indicate that the product is to be selected.
The carrier container itself comprises a hollow member, e.g., a parallelopiped shaped box, having an interior space for the bag. The carrier container is sized to hold a garment belt within the bag in a compact, e.g., coiled, configuration. The bag with the belt in it is arranged to be held securely within the interior of the hollow container against accidental displacement. The container has at least one window through which the machine-readable indicia, e.g., a bar code, is visible to be scanned by the scanner to enable the dispensing machine to selectively dispense the carrier assembly therefrom.